Author: Claudia Rebaza

From time to time, the OTW will be hosting guest posts on our OTW News accounts. These guests will be providing an outside perspective on the OTW or aspects of fandom where our projects may have a presence. The posts express each author’s personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. We welcome suggestions from fans for future guest posts, which can be left as a comment here or by contacting us directly.

Ioana Pelehatăi is a culture vulture for an online magazine in Romania. She writes, bakes, and drinks coffee. Sometimes, she also sleeps. Alex Lungu is a freelance video editor. He works mainly in advertising, but he likes to fool around with memes and remixes. Today as part of Fair Use/Fair Dealing Week, Ioana and Alex talk with us about their Copy Me project.

How did you first learn about fandom and fanworks?

Ioana: It was so long ago that I’m not even sure. I think I must’ve been a pre-teen, crushing on all things Addams Family related. At the same time, in school we were being encouraged to have penpals in Western European countries. You could pick a penpal based on their interests and many professed their fandom for one artist or another. Fanworks were a later discovery, linked to the era during which I discovered the Internet — so around the time I was 14-15. I found fanfic forums and realized that the universe of a book or movie is not strictly confined to the initial author’s creation.

Alex: When I was 19, me and a couple of my friends started doing small movies in our dorm room, drawing themes from Kung-Fu and Star Wars movies. One was picked up by the Star Wars community in Romania. They were all geared up, with good looking costumes and lightsabers, unlike our brooms we used to mock-fight with! That’s the first time I learned about fandom and I was quite impressed with their devotion.

Every month or so the OTW will be doing a Q&A with one of its volunteers about their experiences in the organization. The posts express each volunteer’s personal views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OTW or constitute OTW policy. Today’s post is with Cosette, who volunteers as a coder for the Accessibility, Design, and Technology (AD&T) Committee.

How does what you do as a volunteer fit into what the OTW does?

As an AD&T coding volunteer, I work with the open-source code that powers AO3. Coders are recruited to fix bugs, write tests, and develop features. We also work side by side with testing volunteers, to ensure the changes we’ve made to the code won’t cause anything to catch fire.

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